


this unplanned thing

by aliaaaaaa



Series: webgottrash tumblr prompts [26]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliaaaaaa/pseuds/aliaaaaaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a year after the war, web comes back into joe's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this unplanned thing

**Author's Note:**

> an anon requested for a story where web takes care of joe, where web is the strong one.
> 
> here's my sloppy take.

David Webster comes back into Joseph Liebgott life a year after the war is over.

He comes back on one sunny morning, when the fog has lifted from the sea, and the sunlight trickles in through the windows, brightening the small space.

(It’s almost like a metaphor; Web is like the sun that brightens up everything in his life.)

When Joe opens the door to see Webster standing on his doorstep, a big suitcase behind him; he just freezes.

It’s not that Joe isn’t surprised; he is too surprised to even react that he opts to be calm instead and invites Web into his too small apartment and closes the door with a quiet click.

He has too many questions to ask the man who is currently standing in his small den, taking in everything from the empty beer bottles on the table to the haphazardly thrown laundry on the sofa. He doesn’t know how Web finds him but he has an inkling that Skinny tells Web about his whereabouts.

He closes his eyes and shuts them firmly until he sees stars behind his eyelids and opens them to see Web’s clear blue eyes looking at him with such longing in his face that something in Joe catches and releases simultaneously.

Joe wants to be angry, he wants to be upset and to punch Web in his beautiful face for leaving him alone for a whole year after the war is over.

But instead, in this small apartment, with this post-war David Webster standing in front of him, looking hesitant yet calm, Joe takes the five steps forward to engulf Web in his arms.

“Jesus, Web, you are really here,” Joe whispers into Web’s neck, his voice tiny and trembling, still not quite believing that Web is here, that he is holding Web in his arms.

“I’m sorry, I’m late,” Web whispers, his breath warm on Joe’s temple; tightening his arms around Joe’s still too bony shoulders and he has to close his eyes from feeling too much.

*

(After the war was over, Joe thought that he could go back to his old life, being his old self; but he had shed too much blood and his hands felt too dirty from all the killings he had done.

It was difficult.

It was exhausting.

He felt lonely and isolated living in the too big city, among the civilians that didn’t understand how much their freedom had costed, how many of his friends and comrades had died in order for these people to live in peace.

No one in this goddamn city understood him.

He wanted to die.)

*

His routines don’t change even when Web is now living with him.

(Permanently? Temporarily? He doesn’t ask. All that matters is that Web is here with him.)

He wakes up early, too early because he never gets a decent sleep; his dreams are plagued with deaths and decayed bodies and people screaming and too loud gun shooting that he always wakes up gasping and crawling down from his bed to the floor, hiding from unseeing eyes; trembling, apologizing for all the terrors he had seen, from all the terrors he hadn’t being able to stop.

This time when he wakes up in the middle of the night, Web is standing in the doorway to his bedroom, the lights from the road below giving his face an eerie glow.

“Joe?” Web asks, his voice thick with sleep, his pajamas rumple from sleeping on the sofa. He walks slowly towards the bed where Joe’s legs are twisted around the blanket, crying, because he cannot stop the demon from terrorizing his sleep.

He takes Web’s outstretched hand, gripping it hard that he is sure it will bruise by the time he let go. But Web doesn’t even flinch, he just sits down next to Joe and wraps his arm around Joe’s trembling body; murmuring words of comfort into Joe’s temple.

“It’s okay. I’m here. They can’t get to you ‘cause I’m here,” Web murmurs gently, rocking their bodies together back and forth; holding Joe tighter when the older man starts to sob in earnest, broken words that pierce Web’s heart.

“Let it all out. I’m here, Joe. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m here.”

They stay like that maybe an hour, maybe three hours, maybe the whole night; Joe doesn’t count. All he remembers, he fall asleep surrounded by Web’s warm presence, and the demon doesn’t return.

When he tumbles out from his room, the sun is already up, and he realizes that he has slept a full 8 hours with Web’s arms surrounding him, protecting him.

It feels strange seeing Web in his kitchen, wearing his long sleeved t-shirt and his boxers, boiling water to make coffee, pouring cereal into the two bowls; humming to himself like he’s happy to be in the tiny kitchen.

It feels domestic.

It feels intimate.

(Maybe his routines have changed after all now that Web is here.)

It feels like something Joe can get used to.

*

It’s been three weeks, and Web has made himself at home in Joe’s tiny apartment.

There are extra clothes in the laundry basket now which Web is currently carrying as they cross the road over the laundromat.

Joe still has a lot of questions to ask to Web but somehow the words are stuck on his throat, heavy on his tongues.

“I think tomorrow I wanna go and find a job at the newspapers companies. Maybe there’s an opening somewhere as a writer or a journalist,” Web tells him, lighting a cigarette and exhaling slowly.

(That’s one question answered; how long will you be here? Because if this is only for temporary then Web wouldn’t even consider of looking for a job. Right?)

Joe takes the cigarette between Web’s long fingers and inhaling the smoke deeply, feeling it burns his lungs. The filter feels warm from Web’s mouth and he feels giddy with this small knowledge that Web’s lips have been there.

“Maybe I should get a job too then. A proper job,” Joe says, looking at the machine rotating their clothes together, the colors blurring nicely.

“What do you do anyway?” Web asks, stealing back his cigarette from Joe’s lips, sucking it greedily.

(Joe realizes that they don’t talk much about what they have been up to for the last one year and it makes him wonder what exactly are they doing because they clearly are not catching up with one another.

They just simply _live_.)

“This and that. Odd jobs that paid okay for a few weeks. Sometimes I cut hair at the local youth hall. Money’s good,” Joe answers, looking at his fingers, flexing them gently and remembering that these fingers can do just about anything other than pulling the trigger of a machine gun.

“How about driving a cab?” Web suggests, smiling when Joe tilts his head in consideration.

“Maybe,” Joe says simply, remembering the day on the truck. None of his plans work out so far. He’s still in-between jobs, he doesn’t chase nice Jewish girls with big soft titties for him to choose as future Mrs. Joe Liebgott.

But somehow, this is better; this unplanned thing he has going on, with Web next to him, looks promising.

*

When he gets home from his afternoon shift of driving his cab, he stumbles over a thick pile of books on the doorway.

“Web! Get your goddamn books out of the way before I fall on my face for fuck sake!” Joe yells as he closes the door and steps around the books carefully.

Web pokes his head out from the kitchen, frowning slightly at Joe’s tone.

“I told you, we don’t have enough space for the books! And you keep buying new books and bringing them home! Why can’t you leave them at your office?”

Joe saunters into the kitchen, pulling the fridge open and taking a cold beer from it, drinking it in one long gulp as he watches Web cooks.

“I need them for research purposes for the articles I’m writing,” Web mumbles, distracted by the cooking to pay attention to Joe.

(It’s been three months and Web is still here.

His things have accumulated too especially his books and Joe keeps having to build new shelf for Web to store his books.

His big suitcase is stored inside Joe’s closet.

There are spaces for Web’s clothes inside the closet too where Joe pushes his comic book collections aside and arrange Web’s clothes next to his.)

“You just need them because you are a book-hogger,” Joe says, poking Web’s side with his fingers, laughing when Web tries to get away, yelping because he’s ticklish, swatting Joe’s fingers from his waist.

“Stop that! The meat will burn!” Web hollers, trying to get away from Joe but at the same time trying not to burn down the kitchen.

Joe laughs, catches Web with his arms around his waist, hugging him from behind, pressing his chest to Web’s broad back and just _feel_.

Web stops minding the meat, in favor of tilting his head backward to knock Joe’s temple lightly.

“You okay?” Web asks, his free hand rubbing Joe’s arms in comfort.

“I’m fine. Just glad you’re here,” Joe murmurs into Web’s back.

(Something else has changed too; Joe is now sharing his personal spaces with Web.

The firm hugs.

The gentle touches.

The soft kisses.

He loves that they’re getting personal again.)

*

Joe wakes up to the sound of Web’s snoring next to his ear.

He has his arm thrown over Joe’s waist carelessly, their legs tangling together hopelessly underneath the blanket.

It’s been seven months and this is the first time since Web arrives that Joe is awake in the middle of the night.

The bad dreams that always plagued his sleep, they’re gone now. Perhaps the demon is too scared to come near him now that Web is a permanent fixture in his bed.

Or maybe the demon inside him is weak now because he is happier day by day.

(The first time they went to bed together was back in Toccoa; when Web just transferred to E. Co.

They had been eyeing each other for the past few months but were too afraid to act on their desire.

It was him that approached Web outside the cinema when they both got their weekend pass.

They ended up renting a room above a nightclub.

When Web pushed him down on the soft mattress, the band was playing something jazzy, something that reminded him of home.

When they moved together, the band had stopped playing and the only sounds that were heard inside the room were of their own breathless moaning, of skin slapping on skin, of curses and of their names mingling together.)

Joe shifts to watch Web sleeps.

He sleeps messily, his soft lips open for a fraction; even in his sleep, Web is not capable of shutting his mouth.

He thinks about their times spend together in these few months, how Web makes him happy, how Web erases all the pain in him, how he feels at ease in his own skin, how he feels at home in his own home because Web is here with him.

There are still questions that he haven’t asked but at this point, the questions are not important anymore.

Because here is Web, sleeping, snoring loudly next to him. And here he is, feeling content and whole after so long.

+

(When the new year comes, Web takes Joe to his office party and introduces him as his boyfriend.

It’s the new year, and they’re both veterans of war and they won the country its freedom and people can talk and jeer all they want but it won’t change the fact that they are together.

Web leads him to the roof, one palm resting possessively on Joe’s back, to show him the view of Frisco from above.

They drink beers and trying to search their small apartment by pointing randomly at any directions.

Web leans in to kiss him on the lips when the fireworks start to bloom on the dark night sky and he presses closer, balling his fingers on Web’s shirt, humming happily with every lick of the tongue and every press of the lips.

When they pull apart, breathless and trembling, Web murmurs a soft ‘I love you’ on his temple and Joe closes his eyes, his heart beating too fast as he replies, ‘I love you, too.’

It’s been a year that Web is here and the demon inside Joe dies as his heart is full of love once again.)

**Author's Note:**

> first posted on [webgottrash](http://webgottrash.tumblr.com/post/142691733907/lets-turn-the-roles-around-and-make-web-care-for)


End file.
